Historian Helena P. Schrader discusses ancient Spartan society and culture, seeking to rectify a number of common misconceptions. She also provides excerpts from her biographical novels about Leonidas and reviews of books on ancient Sparta. For more, visit her website at: http://spartareconsidered.com

Ancient Hoplites

Sunday, November 1, 2015

No Spartan has left a larger
footprint in history and art than Leonidas. Not the commander of the Spartan
army that actually defeated the Persians, Pausanias, nor the Spartan that
eventually defeated Athens after the gruesome thirty-years war, Lysander, are half so well remembered . Lycurgus and Chilon are familiar names only
to classical scholars; Leonidas is a cult and comic-book hero, not to mention
there is a chocolate company named for him.

Leonidas was, of course, a legend
in his own time. The Spartans built him a monument at Thermopylae, notably
separate from the monument to the rest of the 300, and a second monument was
built to him at home in Sparta as well. His body was brought home after the
Persians had been driven out of Greece.
But, unless it is an accident of archeology, larger monuments were built
to the victors Pausanias and Lysander than to Leonidas. In short, Leonidas’ appeal appears to have
been greater in the modern world than the ancient. This might have many explanations
– starting with the political agenda of his successors (or those who controlled
his immature son) or discomfort with commemorating a devastating defeat. The modern world, perhaps influenced by the
Christian tradition of honoring sacrifice, is impressed by Leonidas’ defiance
and devotion to duty more than his defeat.

There is also a modern tendency
to assume that Leonidas’ behavior was “typical,” that he was indeed only doing
what Spartan society expected of him, or acting “in accordance with the law.”
This assumes that Spartans were “never” allowed to retreat and always chose
death over either retreat or surrender.
The Spartans, of course, knew better.

Sparta had suffered many severe
defeats before Thermopylae, and in no other did an entire fighting force die to
the last man for a lost cause. For example, there is good reason to believe that Sparta lost the First Messenian War, and it was ensuing economic and
social dislocation that led to unrest and revolution. Certainly, Sparta was given a resounding
thrashing by the Argives at Hysiai in 669 BC, but even so the Spartans
retreated rather than die to the last man.
Roughly one hundred years later, Sparta again over-reached herself in an
attempt to conquer Tegea, and again there were survivors; they were enslaved in
Tegea and forced to do agricultural labor for Tegean masters. In 525 BC, a
Spartan expedition against Samos likewise ended in humiliating defeat, but not
the extermination of the expeditionary force.
Finally, in the reign of Leonidas’ half-brother Cleomenes, a Spartan
force under Anchimolius was attacked by Thessalian cavalry 1000 strong at
Phalerum, and, according to Herodotus, “many Lacedaemonians were killed…and the
survivors driven back to their ships.” Note,
again, the survivors were driven back to their ships, which they presumably boarded
and used to return to Lacedaemon. There is not a word about dying to the last
man.

Nor did “death rather than
surrender” become the standard for future Spartan commanders after Thermopylae.
The history of the Peloponnesian war is littered with Spartan defeats; none
were massacres. Even in the infamous
case of 120 Spartiates trapped on the island of Sphakteria, the record shows
that they surrendered and were taken off into (brutal!) Athenian captivity. Nor were they written off by an indignant
population as cowards, "tremblers" or otherwise disgraced and worthless. Had they been so viewed, Sparta would not
have sued for peace and made serious concessions to Athens to have them
returned. Even their collective degradation from full-citizen status on their return
is not indicative of disapproval of surrender. On the contrary, it more likely reflects fear that men who had been in
Athens for almost four years might have become subverted (brainwashed, is the
Cold War term) by Athenian democracy.
After an unknown period, they were collectively reinstated, and some even ran
for public office. That would not have been possible, if the majority of
Spartans had felt they should have committed suicide rather than surrender.

Leonidas’ legacy was not one of
blind, mindless self-sacrifice. His example was one of devotion to duty, even
unto death, for a good cause. Leonidas did not die for the sake of dying –
much less take his comrades with him to a senseless death. He had clear military objectives that he
hoped to achieve by his last stand: 1) giving the other Greek contingents time
to withdraw and live to fight another day, and 2) increasing Persian respect
for/fear of Spartans. Once the pass at
Thermopylae was turned, Leonidas knew the Persian army would advance unopposed
into Central Greece. He could not know where it would next be confronted by
land-forces, but he must have feared that it might sweep through Central Greece
to the Isthmus of Corinth. He must have feared that Sparta might find herself
virtually alone facing the onslaught.
Anything he could do to make Xerxes hesitate to take on a Spartan army
must have seemed worthwhile. That is a
legacy worth preserving.

Last but not least, as a devout
Spartan, Leonidas undoubtedly believed he had to fulfill the Delphic Oracle. He
knew he had to die, if Sparta was to be saved. In that sense, he was from the
start a sacrificial lamb, but not until the position at Thermopylae was
betrayed, did his sacrifice inherently encompass defeat as well. He probably hoped when he set out for
Thermopylae that he could die in a victorious
battle – or at least an indecisive one. He certainly hoped and expected that
alive or dead his advance force over 6,000 strong could hold the Hot Gates
until Sparta’s full army could reinforce the advance guard. When it became
clear he would die in a hopeless situation, he tried to minimize the losses by ordering
the withdrawal of the allied contingents (and almost certainly all the
Perioikoi troops that would have been with him). He even tried to save some of the Spartiates
by giving them dispatches for delivery somewhere. They saw through him and
refused. They refused out of loyalty, out of friendship, out of personal affection
for Leonidas, both the man and the king. They did not act for military reasons
but for personal ones. Yet their legacy too is worth honoring.

Sparta's culture and military ethos are a fundamental focus of my three part biographical novel of Leonidas.A Boy of the Agoge A Peerless Peer